I mixed about 70% of the flour, gradually, then let it sit covered for 20 minutes. Then I mixed in enough flour so that it was still slightly runny, for about 5-10 minutes. Though I had to pull the dough off the hook and scrape it out of the mixing bowl. I then kneaded by hand for a minute, working some more flour in. I feel confident that I didn't put too much flour in the dough. The dough felt nice and smooth. I wiped down the inside of a Tupperware bowl with a light coating of olive oil, placed the dough in, sealed the lid, put in the fridge.

This morning the dough has easily doubled in size. Thoughts....maybe I should have used less yeast (half packet maybe?) and a cooler water. Doesn't salt slow down the fermentation? It'll definitely be ready for shaping into a pie tonight. I'm totally looking forward to seeing how the autolyse affects the dough compared to my past doughs. I've also never fermented my doughs for longer than 2 hours. But I've been very satisfied with my results in the past. Autolyse + slower fermentation should improve my dough even more.

When I remove it from the fridge tonight, should I punch it down and knead it again or just go directly to shaping it? I usually punch it and hand knead it for a couple minutes, form a small disc and let it rest for 20 minutes before shaping. I want a nice light and airy crust this time though so please recommend what I should do.

I'll take some good pics tonight and let you know how things turn out......

For this amount of water you can cut back the yeast to a very tiny amount. A packet is about 2 teaspoons. You can literally use 1/8 teaspoon.

You are not going to like the dough without salt... I hate to say it, but you should probably start over.

You should go directly to shaping the dough without punching it down or kneading it. Be gentle with it. If you punch it down, you really have to wait for it to rerise.

Jeff

What exactly does the salt do to the yeast? I heard that it kills yeast on contact. I'm sure there's some chemical reaction that takes place. I'll use the dough anyway, my tomato sauce is pretty good now that it's sat in the fridge a few days. When I use up the ADY I'm going to try IDY. I've never used IDY since I've had such good results with ADY in the past. I grew up on ADY so that's what I'm used to seeing. Hopefully my sourdough starter turns out good this time, then I can start using that.

there's no difference in taste between IDY and ADY. You will notice a big diff with the starter though.

Salt does not really kill yeast. I just slows it down. The lack of salt was one reason your dough doubled in bulk even though you had it in the fridge. The taste of your dough without salt will not be pleasing, I predict.

there's no difference in taste between IDY and ADY. You will notice a big diff with the starter though.

Salt does not really kill yeast. I just slows it down. The lack of salt was one reason your dough doubled in bulk even though you had it in the fridge. The taste of your dough without salt will not be pleasing, I predict.

Salt also affects the feel and elasticity of the dough.

It takes a while to get these procedures perfect.

Jeff

Should I at least press some salt into the dough for flavor? I think I forgot to add it because I also left out sugar this time. What I used to do was add a cup of warm water to mixing bowl, add yeast, add sugar, mix with a fork, and leave it alone for 5 minutes. The I would add the salt and flour and mix.

I checked my starter this morning and it's starting to bubble, which is a good sign. I started it Tuesday night. So far it smells good, not like vomit which was the case last week. We'll see what prevails in a day or two.

Hi Kidder, Although Jeff made some good points as usual, i would not say IDY and ADY are the same. The IDY is a stronger yeast and therefore you use 25% less when converting from ADY. Also the IDY does not have to be activated in water. The IDY can be added directly to the dry ingrediants. You also will be able to use cooler water temperatures(room temp is fine) to achieve lower finished dough temperatures. The finished dough temperature is important when holding a dough in the cooler for longer periods(24-72hrs). The recommended finished temperature for refridgerated dough is72-84F.After the the dough is mixed and temperature is taken there is no need to let is rise outside the fridge. This temperature is difficult to achieve when using ADY and +100F water. You see where i am going with this. I will say that the ADY imparts a stronger yeasty flavor on the dough. Other than the above mentioned the activity of ADY is basically the same just a faster fermentation rate is being applied to the dough process, not necessarally better. Chiguy

there's no difference in taste between IDY and ADY. You will notice a big diff with the starter though.

Salt does not really kill yeast. I just slows it down. The lack of salt was one reason your dough doubled in bulk even though you had it in the fridge. The taste of your dough without salt will not be pleasing, I predict.

Salt also affects the feel and elasticity of the dough.

It takes a while to get these procedures perfect.

Jeff

Well, you were correct....bland as hell. Probably my worst dough ever. It overrisen way too much, almost touching the lid of the bowl so I ended up punching it down and hand kneaded it for a minute. Like you said, I should've thrown it out.

There are techniques in professional pizzamaking (not neapolitan ones) where the salt is added at the very latest when the dough has already come together. Make sure to mix it in but not to overmix the dough

I forgot to mention that the above amounts were for 2 pizzas, but you probably figured that out.

Varasano, I've been going through your ratios of ingredients for the dough from your site. I think I got the conversions down (I don't have a scale to measure out in grams). Here's what I converted for two pies:

I'm still feeding my sourdough starter so until it's large enough to use I'll be using only IDY or ADY. Do the above conversions seem approx. correct to you? Seems like there should be more water than that though, or less flour. Liquid and dry conversions are done differently I think.

With that little amount of water, I almost know I'll need around 3 cups flour, give or take. I don't know what I was thinking during the conversion. Can you guide me in the right path here? I hate dealing with grams.....

First of all, I don't see how you can achieve 3.8 cups from 380 grams. If you lightly pack your flour in your measuring cup you should get around the same as indicated on the package of flour, which is 120g per cup. So you need to figure out for sure how much flour you used, 380g or 456g. Yes, you might want to increase your amount of water too. If you are measuring your flour by weight, and you actually use 380g of flour, try using 228g (~8oz or 1 cup) of water for 60% hydration. From that batch of dough you can decide whether you want to either increase or decrease your amount of water. Your amount of salt and yeast can stay where they are if you want.

- red.november

EDIT: Your IDY measurement conversion is also suspect. Either 1 g or 1 tsp is fine, but you will have very different proof times.

I thought Jeff might address Kidder's questions but my understanding is that Jeff accurately weighs out the amount of water but that the amount of flour, even though specified on his webpage, is kept "loose" and that he adds it only to the point of achieving the high levels of hydration he looks for. That way, he doesn't force too much flour into the dough and it also doesn't matter what kind of flour, or blends of flours, he uses. Using the numbers Kidder posted, the calculated hydration would be 56.8%, which is far less than what Jeff ends up with in his doughs. As Jeff has noted, he is not a slave to measurements but rather relies on "feel", at least as far as the amount of flour is concerned. If I stated Jeff's approach correctly, if I were Kidder I would measure out the water (which is between 7/8 cup and 1 cup when weighed on my scale) and add only so much of the recited flour amount to get the high level of hydration Jeff looks for. That approach is consistent with the one that I believe Marco uses based on common Neapolitan practice where the amount of water is used as the starting point.

What doesn't make any sense is stating both volume and mass measurements when you are either going by "feel" or exact quantities. You either state measurements by volume using standard practices, or you use mass to remove any ambiguity over practices. What is lightly packed or loosely packed according to one person maybe a whole different practice for someone else.

Jeff recites only weights at his website, not volumes. However, many members do not have scales and prefer to use volume measurements. I used to recite only weights in many of the formulations I posted, especially for flour and water, but to accommodate members without scales I started to convert weights of flour and water to volumes. I did this using a specified approach (my "standard practice") which I recommended that users follow to get as close as possible to the same amount of flour that I weighed on my scale or the amount of water I weighed in my Pyrex measuring cup (tared). I agree with you that it would be nice to have standardized weight-to-volume conversions but I think I am one of the few on the forum, maybe the only one, who uses any standardized conversion system. One exception to this practice is the Lehmann dough calculating tool. It gives only weights for flour, water and cake yeast, but gives both weights and volumes for the ingredients that are lightweight and hard to weigh without having the proper scale.

BTW, I didn't notice it earlier but I believe Kidder's volume measurement is a bit on the high side if he is using table or fine sea salt, and I believe 1 gram of IDY (0.035 oz.) is about a third of a teaspoon.

I was primarily referring to Kidder's conversions when I said it didn't make any sense to state both. It just leads to problems like those that exist in his post. Just state the measurements using the method (mass or volume) actually used to measure. I see nothing wrong with assuming 120g per cup for flour as the food industry has agreed upon. If someone needs to convert from mass to volume, again let them assume standard (and when I say standard, I mean universally accepted standard) practices. Most people don't want to read pages and pages and possible entire sites for a backstory on how someone measures their flour. When you read a recipe, assume food industry mass-volume standards. When you give a recipe, assume the reader will use food industry mass-volume standards for any conversions. The first rule of science, which applies to recipes in a dramatic way, is that it must be reproducible.

- red.november

EDIT: Actually, even 120g per cup is a little low. I think the industry is rounding down (a lot) on a 1/4 cup basis. The standard for 1 cup of bread flour on a one cup basis is 137g.

I don't see anything wrong with mixing mass and volume measurements throughout a recipe, just not a mass and volume measurement for a single ingredient in the recipe based on your own practices. I bet you can't measure two consecutive cups of flour by volume with the exact same mass each time. It's almost impossible even if you are especially careful to be consistent. If you are providing conversions for people based on universal standards, that works too because being off by a few percent isn't too bad. As you mentioned, the best advice is simply to use a scale for more accurate measuring.

Yeah, Jeff told me to start with 1/2 cup water and add enough flour so that the dough looks like the photos. I pretty much have an idea of what the dough should feel like as my doughs in the past have been fairly satisfactory. He said the hotter the oven the wetter you want the dough. I'll be working with a 500F oven. I generally have my pizzas out of the oven in a little less than 10 minutes. I'm not going to try to meet a percentage, I'm going by how it feels.

I *may* try to use my sourdough starter than I created from scratch last week. The smell is starting to mellow out and smells decent so I'd like to try it out soon. The longest I've fermented dough was 24 hours...and that was when I forgot to add salt. This week should also be my first experience with Escalon tomatoes and I'm chomping at the bit to get those.

I can't believe Sam's has 2 pounds of IDY for under $4. I'll be using that as well instead of the usual ADY packet.

All I try to do when converting from weight to volume is get people close, whether it is by doing my own conversions for flour (using the same brand and type of flour if possible) and water and stating the method used (I often use an expression like "stir, spoon and level" for flour), or using weight-based conversions for other ingredients or using data provided on packaging of the other ingredients, just as we discussed with molasses a while back. In many cases, it will be difficult to measure out volumes precisely anyway using standard measuring cups and spoons. I read that there are even variations among different brands and shapes of measuring cups and spoons.

Your approach may indeed work well but I have discovered that getting everyone on the same page on any matter is extremely difficult. King Arthur on its packaging for flour says that 5 lbs. of bread flour is about 19 cups (about 120 grams per cup), but I wonder how many people know that and, if they do, whether they pay any attention to it. I believe King Arthur recommends the stir, spoon and level method, and is sometimes stated on its bags of flour.

Because of this discussion, I am actually putting together a web based tool that will convert mass-to-volume and volume-to-mass quantities, which will get people closer to the actual amounts. The reason different measuring cups will give different masses is because of physics. The taller the column of flour, the more compaction due to gravity happens. So if someone weighs a cup of flour with a 1 cup measuring cup 3" tall versus a 1 cup measuring cup 2" tall, and they use the exact same practice or technique, and they use the exact same flour, they will get two different masses. That's why I added that it's 137g per 1 cup of bread flour on a 1 cup basis. It's only 120g per cup on a 1/4 cup basis (obviously assuming that the 1/4 cup is shorter than the 1 cup).

I will create a new thread for it, but for the moment I'm just going to post it here while a few people get a chance to see and use it. I'd like to know if anyone encounters any problems with it displaying correctly.

Thanks for posting the tool. I have been playing around with it and am amazed at how much the numbers can change based on the depth of the measuring cup. Fortunately for me, I use only one set of (metal) measuring cups (straight-sided) and measuring spoons so at least I have been consistent to that extent when doing my conversions.

Based on my preliminary use of the tool I have the following comments and hope they make sense:

1) The most common question that members have when dealing with weights of flour is how the weights convert to cups, fractions of a cup, tablespoons, teaspoons, etc. Will the reverse tool be able to provide those conversions, and, if so, will users have to select the size(s) of the measuring cups they will be using?

2) Will other flours besides bread flour be added to the tool? The usual suspects are all-purpose, bread, high-gluten, and Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour. Even among brands there may be slight variations (e.g, the King Arthur flours are well known and advertised as having a bit higher protein content than competing brands), but I assume that those variations are too slight to worry about.

3) Is there a standard or recommended way of filling a measuring cup to achieve the weight (approx.) given by the tool? Also, as you know, recipes given in volumes, e.g., cups of flour, almost never tell you how the measuring cup was filled or what type of measuring cup was used. I can't see how the tool will be able to provide those answers.

4) Will it be possible for users to enter the number of cups to be converted to weight, e.g., 4 1/2 cups of bread flour weigh "x" grams? In the example given, will full cups and half-cups be handled separately?

5) I noticed that when I used the tool and entered the requisite data, I had to click on the page (anywhere) to have the answer provided. Maybe it's my computer but is it possible to add an "Enter" button?

6) Is it possible to also provide the answer in ounces for those who do not use metric?